Ben Blackshaw Series
by EMac23
Summary: Ben Blackshaw Series
"Here's another one, Greg. They found him lying in the bed of a crashed Jeep. Looks like he took a GSW to the thigh. Poor guy must have bled out."

"Place him on the table and I'll take a closer look. The war is getting pretty bad. The boys of Lawrence, Kansas were taking lots of hits today. You have a card for him?"

"Yeah, there was a name on the dog tags. Figured you would fill the rest of the information out."

"Will do. Thanks Paul, I hope I don't have to see you again today. For the sake of all those kids and their families."

"Yeah it's a damn shame. See ya!"

...

Greg respectfully stood, gently rising as if not to disturb the body. He glared around the room. The fluorescent lights shimmered on the tile that covered the floor and walls of the prep room. A shiver ran down his spine, resulting from the fifty degree conditions. He searched the shelves, full of dark brown bottles of formaldehyde and methanol, for the familiar bottle of disinfectant spray. His eyes lingered over the countless scalpels, scissors, and trocars lined neatly on the metal counter. Next to these tools stood a thin white can labeled "disinfectant spray," just what he needed. He grabbed the can and turned his back toward the center of the room where the corpse rested. The pale body laid anatomically centered on the table; the deceased's head perfectly centered toward the ceiling.

He carefully sprayed a clear mist from the can. It reeked of chemical cleanliness as it fell on the deceased's skin, eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. With the body and room disinfected, he turned toward the variety of tools. He selected a silver razor that gleamed under the lights. Delicately, he began to shave the soldier's face, removing any peach fuzz. With his face now smooth and hairless, he stepped back, carefully reviewing the body once more. Gently, he placed both of his shaky pale hands on the corpse's left shoulder. Slowly he massaged the shoulder, relaxing the muscle, however, the muscle seemed very hard and tense. Confused, he continued this process, massaging the lifeless wrists, fingers, and kneecaps. Again, he found that each joint appeared to feel very firm almost as if the man had been missing his bones. This man just died in the line of battle, he thought and continued on with the procedure.

With deepest solemnity, he shut the eyelids of the corpse, lining the bottom eyelid, similar to the way a woman would put on eyeliner, with a thin layer of glue. He then stuck the eyelids together. He delicately closed the corpse's gaping mouth and worked to create a natural appearing mouth began. He threaded a needle and piece of string through the jaw below the gums, through upper jaw and into the right nostril. The string was pushed through the septum of the nose into the left nostril, and then passed back down into the mouth. Carefully he cut the string and tied the two ends of it together.

Upon completing the mouth of the corpse, the mortician grabbed a fresh scalpel. Shakily, he made a small incision into the Carotid Artery and another incision in the right Jugular vein. In most patients he would proceed to hook the body up to an embalming machine and watch as blood began to secrete from the jugular vein incision. This time, however, the corpse already had stitching on the y incision seemed sloppy, amateurish even, and was actually coming loose. He precisely slid the scalpel into the preexisting stitching, removing it ever so lightly. To his dismay, the scalpel was accompanied with a white sand like residue. Looking carefully, he noticed that the body had an oddly bloated appearance. "Forgive me," he muttered as he took the scalpel and ran it horizontally along the corpse's neck. To his dismay, white residue began to leak out of the corpse. "Paul! Get back in here! Paul."

"Greg, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"Come take a look at what we have here."

"What the hell! What happened to this man?"

"Looks to me like he was embalmed before somewhere overseas. He's been hollowed out and stuffed to the brim with heroin. Someone must have been trying to make a pretty penny."


End file.
